Ridecamp: Re: [RC] when a horse trips...

How many people have a reaction time fast enough to hit a Randy Johnson fast
ball. Not many but a batter has 450 msec ( 1000 msec =  1second) to react
to a 100 mph Randy Johnson fast ball. 

Now if a horse trips and is falling to his knees, it will take him about
250 msec before he hits his knees. That gravity plain and simple. Thats just
a little over one half the time to hit a 100 mph fast ball. Hmmmmmmmm.............
how many people can react react fast enough to hit a 100 mph fastball, must
less react twice that fast to help their horses?  I would suspect that anything
a rider does is much too late, the horse either recovers or falls despite
what the rider does to "help." I would also expect that the horse needs his
head to balance, there is very little the rider does that keeps him from
getting his head - he's a hell of a lot stronger than a rider. 

So I would expect that despite all we think we are doing to "help" we are
actually just making ourselves feel better. 

If you want to know how quick a horse is at regaining his footing, We were
riding along once at a pretty good trot, a hole opened up and the ground
gave way under his front foot (old gopher hole I suspect). He started to
fall and I was pitched forward by my momentum. Before I even realized what
had happened to try to get my weight upright, he had caught himself and was
on his way back up. My body going forward and down and his going up made
a nasty collision as I lay on the wondering just where the hell Mohammed
Ali was hiding in the woods and what I'd ever done to him:-(. I stopped my
nose bleed and fixed my bent glasses and got back on. Dan was sort of looking
at me funny like, "hey why you down there." Of course with blood on my shirt
and face we ran into every one we knew in the woods that day. 

Truman

Alison Farrin wrote:

On the other hand, if you are riding your horse from behind into your hand and he does trip, keeping your hand steady will allow him to lean on it to regain his balance - the "trip" in essence is smaller. FWIW, riding the horse into your hand will solve tripping problems related to balance, though not lameness.

 

Alison A. Farrin
Innovative Pension
Innovative Retirement Services
858-748-6500 x 107
alison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ed and Wendy Hauser
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 5:40 AM
To: SunsetOvrC@xxxxxxx; ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [RC] when a horse trips...

Attempting to "help" a horse when it trips by pulling on the reins is equivalent to lifting onself by pulling on your boot straps-- it can't be done.  Let the horse use its head position to help it gregain its balence.

 

Simple physics.

 

Ed

 

Ed and Wendy Hauser
1140 37th Street
Hudson, WI 54016
715.386.0465
sisufarm@xxxxxxxxxx